


Scenes from the Citadel Mall

by beautifultoastdream



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: AU, But still Mass Effect universe, Crack, Fluff, Gen, Hobby shop, Humor, Mall AU, Mall Cop, Rated G, Vague hint of romance?, store owner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 00:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14272419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifultoastdream/pseuds/beautifultoastdream
Summary: It's an ordinary day at the Citadel Mall, where the prices are low and the dextro food court is horrible. Octavia Shepard, owner of Normandy Game & Hobby, sets out to make a friend, test some new product, and shamelessly tease a C-Sec officer.





	Scenes from the Citadel Mall

**Author's Note:**

> Cracky fluff inspired by a random Tumblr post. I have no idea if there will be more of this, so I'm marking it complete for now.

“Er … Excuse me?”

Octavia Shepard glanced up from the register and found herself looking at a quarian. She vaguely recognized her as a new face at Fleet Electronics (two storefronts down, just on the near side of the levo food court), but she'd almost never seen a quarian in her own store before. As a rule, quarians didn't tend to waste money on video games or tabletop.

Judging by the quarian's nervous stance and the small package clutched in her gloved hands, though, she wasn't here to buy a game.

“Afternoon,” she said. “Welcome to Normandy Game & Hobby. What can I do for you?”

“This is … a little awkward,” the quarian said. “Um … Do you have a microwave?”

Shepard blinked. “Well, yes, we do,” she said. “But don't you work at the electronics store? You guys must have a microwave, right?”

“Yes, we do.” The quarian seemed embarrassed to be in this position, and was shifting uncomfortably. “But I'm only one of three dextro employees. We only have space in the break area for one microwave, and it has to be levo-only, to avoid cross-contamination. And my lunch needs defrosting. Could I maybe use yours …?”

The quarian trailed off again. Shepard didn't have to see through the mask to realize that the younger woman was probably turning red: humans were levo too, after all.

“Er, sorry. Never mind.”

“Wait!” Shepard held up a hand, stalling the quarian's attempted escape. “We have a dextro microwave too. You can use it if you want.”

“Really?” The quarian lit up. “You do?”

“Yep. We had a dextro guy not so long ago, and we're looking to hire more people, so I thought we'd better keep it. Kaidan!”

A door in the back wall, half-hidden behind two shelves of secondhand omni games, opened up and a dark-haired human male looked out. “You rang?”

“She's coming back to use the microwave. Don't call security. This is …” Shepard turned back to the quarian. “Uh, sorry. What's your name?”

“Tali. Tali'zorah nar Rayya. I just need to heat up my lasagna.”

“She just needs to heat up her lasagna. Show her where the dextro microwave is, will you?”

“Thank you!” Tali called gratefully as she hurried past Shepard. Kaidan shot Shepard an inquisitive glance, but made no comment. Good: she might be the newly-minted owner, but Shepard had already been manager of Normandy for years before inheriting the business from Uncle Dave. While Kaidan wasn't a big fan of people poking around in the back room, he trusted Shepard to know what she was doing.

Shepard prided herself on being good with people. True, she would be the first to admit that she could be a bit of a bitch when pushed—a tendency that her stint in the military had only encouraged—but overall, her number one rule in life was that it hurt no one to try getting along with each other. And it had worked so far: the store's sales had never been better, and her customer retention rate was aces. Not a problem if that meant occasionally letting a lost quarian use the dextro microwave, or abusing her position on the central concourse to let the other stores know when a serial troublemaker was coming in.

Or, for that matter, subverting the authorities.

Which reminded her: it was 12:45. She double-checked the time, just to be certain, and levered open the upright cooler sitting in the corner of the shop. “Joker!” she yelled. “I'm going to M-Sec! Watch the counter!”

“Yes'm, commander!” said a voice. Joker limped out from the door behind the counter—he'd probably been sneaking time in the back office, talking to his extranet girlfriend again—and settled onto the stool behind the register. He tipped her an ironic salute and wink from under his Normandy ball cap. “What is it this time? Kicking their asses or feeding them tips?”

“Little from column A, little from column B.” Shepard tucked a bottle of dextro ramune into her shoulder bag and closed the cooler door with a swing of her hip. “It's just you and Kaidan in here, so keep an eye out. If you have any trouble, ping me and I'll come running with reinforcements. You're in charge while I'm gone, too, so if you break your hand punching anyone it's still your fault.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're no fun any more, Shepard.”

“Lies. I was never fun.” Shepard slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the entrance. “Oh, and there's a nice quarian girl from Fleet Electronics in our breakroom. She's using the dextro microwave and seems perfectly harmless. Probably on her Pilgrimage. Please don't be nasty to her; if we can trade microwave time with Fleet for use of their bathroom, it'll save us a ten-minute hike to the public one. Or thirty, in your case.”

“Ouch.” Joker waved a hand. “Go on, go squeal to the pigs. I'll be here running your business for you.”

Shepard snorted and headed out the door. Joker could certainly be in charge for half an hour or so: he was one of the fill-in managers for days off, after all. But as much as she liked the guy, she sometimes wished she could get an answer not generously sauced with sarcasm.

She set off down the concourse, bag on her shoulder, and found herself smiling a little as she did so. Five years ago she'd never have thought that, after a successful stint in the Alliance forces, she'd be inheriting and managing Uncle Dave's store in the Citadel Mall—but, hey, it worked for her.

The Mall was one of the first such complexes off Earth itself. Apparently, humans were one of the only species that preferred to contain their shopping in a separate building; most of the other races mixed shops and kiosks into residential and business areas wherever they would fit, a habit acquired from centuries of space travel and the need to mash colonies into whatever areas were available. But about ten years ago, the sheer size of tourist traffic coming through the Citadel had become impossible for the ordinary facilities to handle, and having twenty-four-hour shops in residential areas had become unfeasible. There'd been a lot of complaints and, in the lower wards, a few warning shots. Finally, Citadel authorities had decided to give this “mall” thing a try. Now on any given day, around half the tourists would be conveniently corralled into a single structure.

The resulting complex was, like most Citadel architecture, a towering monstrosity of steel and glass. Dozens of shops and restaurants crowded the Mall's four levels, providing everything from replacement starship components to elcor nail art. (“Gushingly. That color is so you, sister.”) The occasional Keeper could be seen tending the strip of greenery down the middle of the concourse, but as the rest of the structure was new, the Keepers never did any of the maintenance on the building itself.

Shepard was all right with that. Call her prejudiced, but the Keepers weirded her out a little.

As the Mall was a Citadel institution, it was patrolled by C-Sec. Shepard was given to understand that the Mall beat was both loved and hated by the C-Sec cops: loved because there was a significantly lower chance of getting shot, hated because you haven't known paperwork until you've broken up a fight between three batarians, two turians, a hanar, and a krogan, all trying to be that valued 1000th shopper.

Shepard chuckled a little as she remembered that day. She'd felt so bad for the arresting officer that she'd slipped him a free drink from Normandy's cooler.

Now, it was once again Thursday, and her favorite C-Sec officer would be back on the Mall beat. Poor guy.

The C-Sec Mall office (or M-Sec, as everyone in the complex called it) was located central to the Mall's floor level, near the levo food court. As Shepard approached, four cops were trading off shifts, clocking out with a flicker of light from their omni-tools. Most of them were turians, a species that had a natural advantage when it came to tackling someone onto a hard plasteel floor.

(A skill that, in Shepard's three years at the Mall, she had seen used more times than she'd have believed.)

The door of the office slid open again, and—aha, there he was. He was intent on a display on his own omni-tool, probably going over some figures or checking his schedule, and he jumped a little when she whistled.

“Officer,” Shepard said, crossing her arms with a smile. “Going on break?”

The turian didn't laugh, but his mandibles flared in that way that said he was thinking about it. “Shepard,” he said. “Caught any shoplifters lately?”

“That's your job, Officer Vakarian. I'm just the humble store manager, trying to supply games and hobby supplies to all the honest, law-abiding nerds of the galaxy.” She held up her shoulder bag. “Ramune?”

“Pretty sure this counts as bribing an officer,” Vakarian said, but there was definitely a laugh in his subvocals now. He flicked off his omni-tool and fell in beside her as they strolled along the causeway, past the levo food court. “But sure, why not,” he added a little too casually, and Shepard tossed him the ramune bottle with a smile. “Hmm, is this one new?”

“Lemon and choha'vistase. Part of the 'Tastes of the Galaxy' range.” Shepard nodded at the colorful bottle, which was decorated with printed pictures of the human and quarian fruits. “We got a sample case of different mixed flavors from the manufacturer, and that's the only one I even vaguely recognized. You're gonna have to be my guinea pig on this.”

Vakarian paused, the bottle in hand. “Sorry, I think my translator glitched. Your … I'm your hamster?”

Shepard laughed. “No, it's a different animal. Related to the hamster, though. It means you're my test subject.”

“I'm honored.” Vakarian popped open the bottle with one talon (Shepard would hate to do a turian manicure, but she did rather envy them their useful all-purpose claws) and took a sip.

As Shepard watched, a strange look crossed his face. His mouth plates creased deeply, and he blinked rapidly as he swallowed.

“Um,” he said, after a moment. “I don't mean to be ungrateful, Shepard, but …”

“Uh-oh. Is the guinea pig having an adverse reaction?”

After a moment's consideration, Vakarian took another sip. His plates creased again, and he carefully handed the bottle back to her. “The guinea pig's owner should be charged for unethical experimentation.”

Shepard frowned at the bottle in her hand. “Well, shit. Does this mean I assaulted a police officer?”

That got a real laugh—primary and secondary vocals, the whole thing. “I think we can safely say that Asari-Namco committed the assault,” he said dryly. “You, I'll let off with a warning.”

“Phew.” Shepard veered towards the garbage can next to the grassy verge and chucked the bottle in, hearing it splash on the bottom of the can. “Sorry about that. I'm pretty low on dextro test subjects since Nihlus left, and it's a little awkward to have customers asking 'Oh, is this one good?' when for me, it's just an allergic reaction in a bottle.”

“Do your customers actually ask about that?” Vakarian asked. By the set of his mandibles, he was still grinning. “I would have thought they'd be more concerned with caffeine content.”

“Most of them are, yeah. But we've got Stimpak Shots and Five-Relay Energy for those guys. Plus, ever since Red Drell started bringing out new flavors, I can pretty safely say I'm now the caffeine dealer for half the mall. But some people want something that'll still let them sleep at night, y'know?”

“Sleep is for the weak,” Vakarian deadpanned, and now it was Shepard's turn to laugh.

They made a left around the end of the grassy verge, turning automatically down the left-hand concourse. This was where the “serious” shops were—the gun stores, ship suppliers, and high-end menswear, not to mention the ever-present army surplus outlets. Shepard knew Vakarian's beat took him down there sometimes, but there wasn't exactly time to window-shop when you were trying to tackle a fleeing batarian. And you could take a woman or a turian out of their respective militaries, but you couldn't stop them admiring the hardware.

They were checking out a display in the window of One-Man Army (“Precision Krogan Engineering!" A blatant lie, but the prices were rock-bottom) when a thought occurred to Shepard. “Hey, Vakarian.”

“What now?”

“Does the dextro food court do quarian food?”

Turians didn't have eyebrows that could shoot up in surprise, but Vakarian's secondary vocals jumped a tiny bit in that way she'd learned (okay, been taught in boot camp) meant a turian caught off his guard. “Uh … you know, I'm not actually sure? Storefronts change in there all the time, and we've had a bunch of closings lately. Considering the number of quarians that _don't_ come to the mall, though, I'd be surprised if they did.”

Shepard had to nod at that. The mall, with all the bustle of a marketplace and the added fun of a recycled, enclosed environment, wasn't the best place for someone with a compromised immune system. She could count the number of quarians she'd seen there on one hand. “And even the turian stuff isn't very good, right?”

That got a snort from him. “Why else do you think I take your bribes? It's either leech off you or pack my own lunch.”

“Shithead,” Shepard said fondly.

“Ape.”

“Skullface.”

“Squishy.”

“Asshole.”

“Cloaca. Why? Did someone at your store ask about it or something?”

“No … Well, sort of,” she amended. “Turns out Fleet Electronics has a quarian employee now, and she came looking to use our dextro microwave. Seemed a little lost. Nice girl—name of Tali. I was wondering if there was anywhere around here she could get a decent meal.”

“Out in the Wards, maybe. Here? She'd have better luck stealing your ramune.”

“Well, shit.” Shepard gnawed her lip. “I hope she'll be okay.”

At that, Vakarian let out a groan. “Don't tell me.”

“Don't tell you what?”

“You're going to adopt her.”

“I—what?”

“You're going to adopt her,” Vakarian repeated. “Like you adopted Williams after she tried to break into your shop. Like you adopted that girl who used to hang around the levo food court, rambling about Mindoir. Don't think I haven't seen her helping you take in stock in the mornings. Or like you adopted that other human, the breakable one—“

“Joker.”

“Right. Joker. Like you adopted him when he couldn't get another job after his discharge—“

“How do you even know that?”

“He told me. I had to kick him out of the bar on C Level a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, geez.” Shepard winced. “You didn't actually _kick_ him, did you? He's pretty fragile.”

“No, I manhandled him with care and professionalism. Do I look like I want a civilian battery strike on my record?” Vakarian snorted. “And now you're going to adopt a quarian.”

Shepard punched him in the shoulder. “There's nothing wrong with making friends!”

“You call it making friends, I call it assembling a fireteam,” the cop deadpanned. He was keeping a perfect stone face now, and Shepard resisted the urge to punch him again, just for the crime of being better at yanking someone's chain than she was.

“Well,” she said loftily, turning away from him, “if you're going to be like that, Officer Vakarian, I'm going to find some other, much more interesting dextro to take over drinking my excess ramune. Clearly, the local authorities aren't going to cooperate with me.”

“You'll be back,” Vakarian said calmly. “No other dextro is going to put up with you.”

Shepard was trying hard to keep her facade of morally-superior outrage, but it was hard going. She couldn't keep the grin off her face. “I have to get back to my store. See you around, Vakarian.”

He gave her a lazy salute. “Don't get killed, Shepard.”

 

* * *

 

Garrus watched as Shepard vanished around the corner, his smile still on his face and his thoughts a million miles away. Only the distinctive smell of krogan jolted him out of his reverie.

Urdnot Wrex, co-owner of One-Man Army, had just emerged from the store with his brow furrowed. “Y'know,” the ancient krogan said conversationally, “if you're going to hang around fogging up the place with your weird cross-species pheromones, Vakarian, the least you could do is buy something.”


End file.
